When Anjem Choudary was a beer-swilling ladies’ man student called ‘Andy’ – as Islamist firebrand is jailed for life for inspiring a small army of terrorists in UK and abroad

Prosecutor Tom Little KC told jurors at Woolwich Crown Court earlier this month: ‘Leopards don’t change their spots.’

The ‘leopard’ the barrister was referring to was notorious hate preacher Anjem Choudary, who had spectacularly proved the adage by failing to resist the urge to inspire the next generation of terrorists as soon as he had the means.

Choudary has spent three decades promoting the establishment of an Islamic state in Britain and advocating for violence, with his lectures inspiring beheadings and bomb plots around the world.

Yet his student days suggested a different picture, with Choudary then going by the name of Andy and posing in front of pints and with pornographic magazine Mayfair.

He has now been jailed for life with a minimum term of 28 years for directing a secret terrorist propaganda operation over the course of ten years. 

The 57-year-old founded Al-Muhajiroun (ALM) in 1996 and spent nearly 30 years running their operations under dozens of different names – with members linked to at least 16 different terrorist plots.

The son of a Pakistani market trader from Welling in south east London, Choudary studied law at Southampton University after dropping out of a medical course.

Fellow students recalled him drinking cider, enjoying casual sex, smoking cannabis and even taking LSD, despite insisting he was a Muslim.

He is said to have had a series of white girlfriends and could down a pint of cider in just a few seconds. 

One former acquaintance previously said: ‘At parties, like the rest of us, he was rarely without a joint.

‘The morning after one party, I can remember him getting all the roaches [butts] from the spliffs we had smoked the night before out of the ashtrays, cutting them up and making a new one out of the leftovers.

‘He would say he was a Muslim and was proud of his Pakistani heritage, but he didn’t seem to attend any of the mosques in Southampton, and I only knew of him having white girlfriends. He certainly shared a bed with them.’

The only sign of activism came in his upset over Salman Rushdie’s book The Satanic Verses, which some Muslims believed to be blasphemous.

The friend said: ‘You didn’t want to get him started on that. He would go on and on about the fatwa and he supported calls for the book to be banned.

‘But he would have a glass of cider in his hand when he was carrying on about it.’

But after moving back to London when his studies ended, Choudary met Islamist firebrand Omar Bakri Muhammad at a mosque in Woolwich and quickly fell under his spell.

Bakri, a Syrian who came to Britain in the 1980s, had set up a sharia court in the UK and Choudary became his ‘naqib’ or assistant.

Bakri, who celebrated the 9/11 attacks as a ‘Towering Day in History’, formed the group Al-Muhajiroun, meaning ‘the foreigners’, in the 1990s and Choudary was soon a key lieutenant.

The government repeatedly tried to ban the organisation, leading them to adopt a number of different names, including Al Ghurabaa, Islam4UK, Muslims Against Crusades, Need4Khilafah and the Shariah Project. There are still however referred to by their original name.

Choudary became heir apparent of Al-Muhajiroun in 2005 when his spiritual guide Omar Bakri Mohammed fled Britain in the wake of the July 7 terror attacks.

He organised a string of stunts to offend the British public and gain media attention, including a group burning a giant poppy and screamed insults during a two-minute silence in London on Armistice Day in November 2010.

Choudary, from Ilford in east London, was imprisoned for five years in 2016 for inviting support for Islamic State before being released on licence from HMP Belmarsh halfway through his sentence in 2018.

But in the year after his licence terms lapsed in 2021 – which included barring him from the internet – he began spreading his message to a global audience once again, giving more than 40 lectures to a spin-off of his banned Islamist group al-Muhajiroun.

Just three weeks after his ban on using the internet expired, the 57-year-old began pumping out vile press releases on encrypted messaging apps to followers as far away as Brazil, Canada and the US.

Following a joint investigation by MI5, Scotland Yard, the NYPD and Canadian police, he was arrested again last July.

In the first prosecution of its kind, Choudary was convicted on July 23 of directing a terrorist organisation and encouraging support for it online.

A senior security official hailed his conviction as a very ‘significant moment’ in the fight against international terrorism.

But experts said that, given his long history of radicalising followers and encouraging terrorist acts, Choudary should never have been allowed internet access after his release.

Over decades, he is believed to have infected the minds of more than 100 Britons who have plotted to carry out terror attacks at home or abroad, many who Choudary knew personally.

A closer look at some of the destruction wreaked thanks to his hateful teachings illustrates how dangerous it had been to allow this leopard out of the cage in the first place.

Soldier killer who had hate preacher at his wedding

Choudary’s best-known disciples were Muslim converts Michael Adebolajo and Michael Adebowale, who murdered Drummer Lee Rigby, 25, outside Woolwich barracks in 2013.

Choudary and Adebolajo were first photographed together at a demonstration in 2007 and the preacher told his most recent trial they were so close: ‘I was there when he became Muslim. I officiated at his marriage.’

The sickening murder of the soldier who had survived the dusty killing fields of Afghanistan shocked the nation, but following the attack Choudary described Adebolajo as a ‘pleasant, quiet guy’.

He added: ‘Some members of the Muslim community struggle to express themselves and he is making his voice heard in blood.’

And though Choudary insisted he lost touch with his acolyte before the attack, Adebolajo told prison sources that it was the cleric’s warped interpretation of the Koran that inspired him to plot the attack on Rigby.

Fishmongers’ Hall attacker

While still a rebellious schoolboy at Haywood High School in Staffordshire, Usman Khan was radicalised by Choudary’s sermons.

And when he was arrested in 2010 over plans to establish a terrorist training camp in Pakistan and blow up the London Stock Exchange, police found his mentor’s number in his phone.

While in prison he was heard discussing Islam through his cell window with another of Choudary’s proteges, Michael Adebolajo, and built his own reputation as an emir [leader] of Muslim inmates – radicalising other prisoners and attempting to impose sharia law behind bars.

Khan’s enthusiastic engagement with the Learning Together programme helped him dupe officials into believing he was reformed, and also allowed him to circumvent a ban from visiting London.

It was during a Learning Together conference in Fishmongers’ Hall in November 2019 that he murdered organisers Jack Merritt and Saskia Jones before he was shot dead by armed officers.

London Bridge murderer

Khuram Butt’s journey from a cannabis-smoking partygoer to murderous extremist began with devouring YouTube videos of Choudary’s sermons.

He met his idol in person during demonstrations in central London and the pair became close, occasionally having dinner at each other’s homes – even while Choudary was on police bail for encouraging support for ISIS.

Butt’s friend, Hamza Raza, said he would transform from a shy and retiring young man to ‘like a lion out of a cage’ in Choudary’s company.

And he displayed murderous savagery when, alongside Rachid Redouane and Youssef Zaghba, he launched an attack on London Bridge and Borough Market on June 3, 2017, killing eight people and injuring 48.

All three attackers were shot dead by police.

Butt, 27, a married father of two nicknamed ‘Abz’ who was born in Pakistan, was so extreme he called fellow Muslims without beards non-believers.

It was also revealed he would not speak to women directly and was banned from a mosque for berating worshippers for being ‘un-Islamic’.

The white convert

White Muslim convert Richard Dart, who once worked as a BBC security guard, was brought into Choudary’s circle through an associate he met while studying carpentry at a west London college.

It wasn’t long before the cleric had fully radicalised the son of teachers from Weymouth, Dorset, and Dart was often photographed next to his mentor at protests.

Choudary even gave his pupil the name ‘Salahuddin,’ after the medieval leader who drove Richard I from Jerusalem.

Dart was stopped as he tried to leave for Pakistan for terrorist training in November 2011 with £4,800 cash to pay his way.

Analysis of his laptop showed he had been plotting an attack on Royal Wootton Bassett in Wiltshire, where thousands gather to honour dead soldiers, and he was jailed for six years.

The defendant’s stepbrother Robb Leech told how Choudary had become a ‘father figure’ to Dart his radicalisation.

Mr Leech said: ‘I talked to Anjem after Richard’s conviction – after he pleaded guilty – and I suggested that he was part of the radicalisation and brainwashing of Richard and others like him.

‘His words, typically brazen, were “some brains need washing”, which goes a long way towards explaining what he was about.’

Poppy-burning bodyguard

Choudary’s poppy-burning bodyguard Mohammed Reza Haque became an Islamic State executioner before he was killed in Syria in 2019.

Known as the Jihadi Giant due to his 6ft 6in frame, Haque had been a devout follower of Choudary since at least 2011.

He fled Britain in 2014 and is thought to have taken over from Jihadi John – real name Mohammed Emwazi – as one of IS’s chief executioners, appearing in propaganda films murdering captives.

Before travelling to Syria, Haque, from Bethnal Green, east London, was seen at several rallies with Choudary, and in 2010 was filmed burning large plastic poppies near the Royal Albert Hall on Remembrance Sunday.

Haque and fellow extremists chanted ‘burn British soldiers, burn in hell’ as crowds observed a two-minute silence nearby.

Haque was charged with a public order offence following the incident – but was cleared due to lack of evidence.

Jehovah’s Witness who turned copycat terrorist

Growing up as a strict Jehovah’s Witness, Brusthom Ziamani spent much of his childhood going door to door hoping to convert strangers.

But as a teenager he became intoxicated by Choudary’s hardline Islamist rhetoric as members from Choudary’s organisation Al-Muhajiroun met in the south London flat he shared with a friend.

He idolised the murderer of Fusilier Lee Rigby and planned a copycat attack – intending to behead a soldier himself after researching the location of Army cadet bases.

But Ziamani was caught roaming the streets in 2014 with a 12in knife and a hammer wrapped in black IS flag. He was just 18 at the time.

Ziamani was jailed for 22 years after being convicted of preparing an act of terrorism.

And in October 2020 he was found guilty at the Old Bailey of attempting to murder a prison officer in an Islamic terrorist attack at top security Whitemoor jail in Cambridgeshire on January 9 that year – and was handed a life sentence. 

Inner circle associate

Siddhartha Dhar, from Walthamstow in east London, was arrested along with Choudary as part of a round-up of the al-Muhajiroun leadership in September 2014.

He had been helping to run the latest iteration of the group, called the Shariah Project, and created a notorious image of Buckingham Palace with an Islamic dome.

Following his arrest, Dhar skipped bail and fled to Syria with his pregnant wife and four children.

A photo from the warzone showed him in a military coat and boots, defiantly brandishing an assault rifle in one hand and holding his newborn baby in the other.

In May 2015, Dhar published an online guide to IS that declared: ‘When we descend on the streets of London, Paris and Washington the taste will be far bitterer because, not only will we spill your blood, but we will also demolish your statues, erase your history and, most painfully, convert your children.’

The former bouncy castle salesman is thought to have been killed in a drone strike in Syria in 2018.

Paris attack ringleader

Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the ringleader of the 2015 Paris attacks which killed 130, was involved with the outlawed group Sharia4Belgium – funded and launched with help from Choudary in 2010.

Choudary was filmed in 2012 in the Netherlands alongside member Hicham Chaib, who fled to Syria where he carried out countless beheadings.

In the footage, Choudary tells members: ‘I come from England in order to radicalise the youth in this country.’

Officials estimate Sharia4Belgium radicalised hundreds of Belgians who went on to fight in Syria.

Omar Ismael Mostelfai, one of the suicide bombers at the Bataclan nightclub in the 2015 Paris attackss, is also said to have been involved in the group.

Abaaoud was from the Brussels district of Molenbeek, dubbed the ‘jihadi capital of Europe’, where the eight-strong killer squad who carried out the attacks are believed to have collected automatic weapons and suicide vests before driving into France in rented cars.

The delivery driver

Delivery driver Junead Khan, whose brother Rajib was a close associate of Choudary, hatched a plot in 2015 to stage a road accident outside a base in East Anglia in order to execute a US airman.

He stole a stars and stripes flag from a local diner which he planned to burn after the attack before displaying a black ISIS flag he had bought online.

Khan, then 25, was jailed for life in 2016 over the plot, with a minimum term of 12 years, for plotting to kill US personnel outside an air base.

He had used his job to scout US bases for potential victims, intending to stage a road accident outside the Lakenheath base and attack people who came to help.

Khan was also found guilty, along with his uncle Shazib Khan, of preparing to go to Syria to join so-called Islamic State. 

Shazib Khan, 23, was given a custodial sentence of eight years, with an extended period of five years on licence.